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Confederation, and prepare the public mind for enlarging them. Although not extended beyond six numbers, it is a foreshadowing, if not a direct annunciation, of the Constitution, and of its best exponent, "The Federalist." All of these works display the marvellous precocity of Hamilton's mind and the easy vigor of his pen. It seems strange to find a boy of seventeen writing with such evident familiarity about Grotius and Puffendorff, and urging home upon his antagonist the unconscious accordance of his fundamental axioms with the godless theory of Hobbes. And it seems equally strange to find that this maturity of thought never checks the vivacity of his style, and that the style never falls below the dignity of the subject.

But the most important channel of Hamilton's influence as a writer from 1777 to 1781 was through Washington's official correspondence; in which it is as impossible to deny that he bore an important part as to deny that the similarity of tone and thought which pervade it from the beginning to the end of Washington's life, prove the importance of the part which he also took in the preparation of the documents that bear his sig

nature.

I have already spoken of the effect produced by he writings of Otis and Quincy. I do not care to speak of Thomas Paine, although his "Common Sense" came out at a propitious moment, and contributed materially to prepare the general mind for

the Declaration of Independence. But when he wrote it he had not been long enough in America to receive any definite impression from the American mind, and I cheerfully relinquish to his native island all the honor that belongs to the birthplace of such a son. Of Hopkinson, whose prose displays much of the playful vivacity which distinguishes his verse, of Samuel Adams, who wrote many of the best state papers of Massachusetts, of Livingston, and Richard Henry Lee, who wrote some of the most important state papers of Congress, and of many others who contributed by letters and pamphlets and state papers of local legislatures to the formation and guidance of public opinion, it is impossible to speak at large in a single lecture. History has not yet done full justice to their labors, nor can I see without a feeling of humiliation and painful regret, that a press which seizes so eagerly upon the journal of Semmes and the life of Stonewall Jackson, which pours out so lavishly the ephemeral productions of the American mind, and reproduces so cheerfully productions of the English mind that do us no service either practically as men and citizens or speculatively as students and lovers of the good, the beautiful, and the true, should permit these precious legacies of our fathers to lie buried and forgotten in pamphlets almost inaccessible from their rarity and newspapers almost illegible from moth-holes and faded ink. How many of the bitterest tears of the present

might we have been spared by a timely study of the past!

For the newspaper press, which is too broad a field for discussion within my narrow limits, I must refer you to Frank Moore's admirable selections under the title of "Diary of the Revolution."

Of the debates in Congress we have but few and imperfect specimens ; but all tradition agrees in attributing to Patrick Henry a fiery vehemence that seemed at times like inspiration; elaborate and polished concision to Richard Henry Lee, argumentative vigor to John Adams, persuasive eloquence to John Dickinson, and in various degrees many of the higher characteristics of eloquence to Jay, and Rutledge, and Mifflin, and Gouverneur Morris.

If there was less of eloquence in the pulpit, there was fervor, earnestness, and fearless patriotism. Men were not afraid of giving utterance on Sunday to the hopes that had mingled with their weekday prayers. They were not afraid to rebuke sin in the garb of state craft and policy, even at the risk of bringing politics into the pulpit. They did not fear to say that the qualities that make bad citizens make bad Christians also; that the traitor to his country is a traitor to his God. This was their faith. They proclaimed it on Sunday, they lived it in their daily lives. Bible in hand they followed Cheir flocks to the camp, toiled with them through weary marches, preached to them with drum-heads

for a pulpit, prayed with them on the battle-field, held the cooling draught to the lips of the wounded, and soothed, amid the roar of the conflict, the fainting spirits of the dying.

We are proud, and justly proud, of the Congress and the army, the statesmen and the generals of our Revolution, and close by their sides stand the patriot preachers.

LECTURE XII.

LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION.

W

PART II. - POETRY.

E saw in our last Lecture that the prose literature of the Revolution was peculiarly a literature of reasoning and discussion. If I were to attempt to characterize the poetical literature of the Revolution I should call it a literature of syllables and rhymes. As a general rule, every noun has its adjective, every object its epithet, and through the mist of accumulated attributes you are often at a loss for the real character of the subject to which they are applied. The lines are generally correct, the number of syllables is complete, the cæsura falls in the right place, there is often thought, sometimes feeling, not unfrequently harmony and movement, but there is neither fancy nor imagination, and therefore no true poetry. Yet this period produced two epics, and elegies, odes, epistles, and occasional verses without number. Barlow is called "the child of genius"; Dwight, "the blessed"; Trumbull, "the earliest boast of fame." And for a long while no one seems to have doubted

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